


give the doorknob a rattle, the bell is broken.

by rockygetsrolling



Series: the bizarre and beautiful life of james w. gordon [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Gotham Central
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Canon-Typical Violence, Concussion Recovery, Concussions, Down with toxic masculinity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/M, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Jim Gordon Is A Badass And Don't You Forget It., Jim Is On House Arrest: The Thrilling Sequel!, LGBTQ Characters, Mental Illness, poc characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-10-01 23:24:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20435042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockygetsrolling/pseuds/rockygetsrolling
Summary: When Jim gets a concussion working a mission, he's conveniently put on house arrest for a month to recover.Old and new friendships are strengthened, but an attempt on his life is looming, and he knows damn well he's not going down without a fight.OR: Jim hangs out with his friends, then fights an assassin. That's it.





	1. "west" - sleeping at last

“You look like shit.”

“I love hearing that first thing in the morning,” Jim says, peering out from underneath the mound of pillows gathered over his head. Somewhere nearby, someone puts a paper bag down on his nightstand, followed closely by the telltale, hollow _thunk_ of a paper coffee cup being placed down beside it. “Did you really bring me breakfast?”

“Yep. From Stacy’s. Your favorite.”

Jim lifts a pillow so he’s just barely peeking through a hole in the mound, his eyes settling on the chest and stomach of the split suit of his visitor; one side is a calm, neutral beige, the other a vibrant, almost-neon violet.

“Thanks for breakfast. I like your suit.”

“Thanks, it’s my new favorite. Just got it from the tailor yesterday.”

“Looks nice. Really compliments your eyes.”

Harvey laughs—it sounds more like a post-marathon wheeze, thanks to the damage done to his throat, but it’s a laugh nonetheless. “You can’t even see my eyes, from where you’re standing. Laying. Whatever.”

“I know what your eyes look like, Harv.”

A pillow is removed from the top of the mound, and Jim’s hand snaps out and swats at Harvey. “Motherfucker, give it back. I have a concussion.”

“No you don’t.”

“Want me to show you my doctor’s note?”

Harvey whistles, well, _tries_ to whistle. “Holy shit. You’re serious.”

“Yep. I’m home on leave for the next month. Doctor’s orders.”

“It’s that bad? What happened?”

“Got punched by one of Bane’s minibosses, then I got smacked in the face with a two-by-four during a raid.” 

“Jesus,” Harvey says, and Jim can practically see him shake his head. “Who hit you? A hench? Riddler?”

“Montoya.”

Harvey is quiet for a moment. “You’re _kidding_.”

“To be fair, it was dark, and it _was_ a raid. I could’ve been anyone. Especially considering I walk around in a trench coat in every season.”

“Why _do_ you do that? Doesn’t it get unbearable during the summer?”

“I have an aesthetic, Harv, and I stick to it.”

Harvey snickers and shakes his head. “Believe me, I know what that’s like.”

Jim laughs then, long and hard, and though the sound is muffled under the pillows, it’s still warm and unbelievably contagious. Soon Harvey is laughing, too, and Jim tries to remember the last time that he felt so good with someone, despite his awful state of being physically. 

There’s a creak and a shift in pressure as Harvey sits down on the bed, settling a hand over Jim’s lower back. It feels comfortable, familiar; Jim remembers long nights spent on the fire escape of Jim’s old apartment, talking cases long into the wee hours before dawn. He remembers meeting for breakfast at greasy twenty-four-hour diners in street corners in the East End, remembers standing in line at subpar cafes for even more subpar coffee, remembers having someone’s back while someone else had yours, remembers the screams in the courtroom as the acid hit its target—

He shivers and pulls a pillow to his face. 

“You’re thinking too hard again,” Harvey says gently. The hand begins to knead his lower back gently, and Jim feels himself relax into the feeling. 

He’s really missed Harvey, and he’s not afraid to admit it. 

“I really missed you,” he says softly, voice still muffled. “I’m glad you’re back.”

Harvey’s hand stops. 

Jim’s heart does a triple time step with anxiety, and he bats the pillows away to get a good look at his friend.

Harvey is looking away, mismatched eyes unfocused, making contact with the great unknown. His face is sad, heartbroken even, and Jim has to resist the urge to wrap his arms around Harvey and just _hold_ him. But Harvey is sensitive in more than just feelings, and Jim doesn’t want to injure him by mistake.

So he reaches down and takes Harvey's good hand, slowly running his thumb over his scarred knuckles. They look like Bruce’s, scarily so; pale patches of mangled skin stretched over old bones and swollen joints. 

“Harv,” he says, voice like the washing of a wave over sand, “Harv, I know you, and I know the other guy, and I _know_ there’s a difference. I missed _you_. And excuse me for pouring my heart out, but I missed your stupid jokes and your talent and your kindness and those nights we spent out on the balconies at galas trying not to go insane.”

Harvey laughs, once.

Jim uses as much of his effort as he can into rolling over and sitting upright. It makes him dizzy and a bit sick—God, concussions are the _worst_—but he doesn’t care. It’s not about him right now. 

He squeezes Harvey’s hand. “I missed you,” he repeats quietly, hoping Harvey hears the sincerity in his voice. “I missed my best friend.”

When Harvey turns to look at him, his good eye is cloudy with tears. 

Jim opens his arms. “C’mere, dumbass.”

Harvey manages a weak laugh and lets himself slump into Jim’s chest, closing his eyes as Jim pulls him down into the sheets with him. 

“I missed you, too,” Harvey says, and Jim can hear the tears gathering at the base of his throat. He knows the feeling all too well. “I missed your stupid musical references and your even stupider sense of humor.”

“My sense of humor is _not_ stupid, thank you very much.” 

“You think the word ‘crapshoot’ is funny.”

Jim holds in a laugh.

“See, that’s what I _mean_—”

“Leave me alone, I’m not the one who makes jokes about Judge Judy episodes. Not a single person I have ever talked to understands your courtroom jokes. Not even other lawyers understand them.”

“They have bad taste,” Harvey harrumphs. 

Jim laughs again, a bit lighter this time, and casually begins to play with the ends of Harvey’s free dreadlocks; most of them have been tied back into a thick braid. “Ever thought that maybe you’re the one with bad taste?”

“If you’re making a jab at my clothes, remember that I am in fact half colorblind.”

“_Half_ colorblind.”

“Shut up.”

Jim smiles quietly and pulls Harvey tighter against him. “Do you have anywhere to be today?” 

“Not until three. I have therapy then.”

“Do you think you could stay here?”

There’s two soft _thuds!_ as Harvey toes off his shoes and curls himself closer to Jim. “Yeah. I think I can stay.”

Jim lets himself relax, thankful that his month off is starting so sweetly. 

“I’m glad we found you again.”

And if his heart does a little jump when Harvey smiles against his shoulder, that’s nobody’s business but theirs. 

_we’ll be just fine, i just know we will / it’s a matter of time till our compass stands still_


	2. “honky cat” - elton john

Renee walks through Jim’s front door holding seven grocery bags and wearing a wild grin.

“Oh no,” Jim says, staring up at her from the pile of reports on his coffee table. “Oh God, you have the energy of Satan himself in your eyes.”

“Raw-ass dialogue, coming from a cop.” Renee bounces on her toes. “And I’m glad I’m as terrifying as Satan. That’s probably third on my list of life goals.”

“An extremely attainable life goal. What’s in the bags?”

Renee grins a bit wider. “All my ingredients for my I’m Sorry I Smacked You In The Face With A Two-By-Four Cookies. They’re chocolate and peanut butter.”

Jim throws his head back and laughs, despite the ache it brings to his temples, and Renee is fast to follow. When the two of them hang out outside of work, they pretty much never stop laughing. It’s one of the many things Jim loves about being around her. 

“Are these cookies for Bane? Cuz that was a pretty hard smack to the face you gave him.”

“Ha, ha, very funny. How long are you on leave?”

“The next month or so, depending on how fast I recover.” 

Renee winces. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. That’s what the cookies are for.”

“Only If you’re gonna help me bake them.”

“Well, shit.” Jim shoves himself to his feet, trying not to sway from standing too fast. “You had me at “chocolate” to begin with, so I guess I gotta help you now, huh?”

“Duh.”

They lay everything out on the counter—there’s two bags each of chocolate and peanut butter chips, and Jim has to fight the urge to rip one open and throw some in his mouth _just_ to piss Renee off. He does it out of love, and she knows it, but chocolate chips are so good and he’s sick so he _should_ get a pass anyway. The September night air drifts through Jim’s screened-in window, his plants bobbing gently in the breeze.

“So, how’s not going to work for a month going so far?” Renee opens a low cabinet with her foot and pulls out Jim’s good mixing bowl—the one with the handle. 

“It’s been two days.”

“Okay, and?”

Jim sighs expressively as he breaks two eggs into the bowl. “It’s been okay. Harvey came over yesterday morning. He brought me pancakes from Stacy’s.”

Renee gives a moan and leans back and down, her hair flowing down her back. “Dude, Stacy’s is the _best_.”

“Exactly my point.”

“How’s he doing?” She pulls a whisk out of his drawer and taps it three times against the edge of the counter—an old habit of hers, for good luck. 

“He seems okay. He’s staying with Bruce and company at the Manor. Seeing a psychiatrist, under that whole distanced observation thing and what have you. I think things are looking good for him.”

Renee hums thoughtfully as she begins to whisk the contents of the bowl, perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary. “And you’re not trying to sneak out to get back to work?”

“I can’t. I’m on house arrest.”

“By who? The mayor? The doctor?”

“Batman.”

She stops whisking and stares at him. “You’re _joking_.”

“I’m one hundred percent serious. He won’t let me leave without a chaperone. He put a fucking _tire lock_ on my car. There was a sticky note and everything.”

Renee starts laughing. 

“I’m serious!”

“Show me!”

Jim pulls it off the fridge and hands it to her, and she reads it out loud gleefully. “_James, if you even try to leave the house, I will put Superman on your ass. Do not test this theory. Love, Bruce_.” When she looks up, her face is red with bottled hysterics. “Did he _seriously_ take the extra time to draw a bat on this.”

“Yep.”

“He’s so _stupid_.”

“My thoughts exactly. I can’t even leave to get groceries. I heard someone on my porch earlier today and when I looked out of the window I swear I saw Superman making a dash for it.”

Renee starts laughing _again_, and before Jim knows it they’re both on the floor of his kitchen, backs against the cabinets, wheezing like the engine of an ancient car after a drag race. Renee has her head between her knees, almost wailing with laughter, and it’s making them both spiral even further.

“Dude, stop, stop!” Renee weakly smacks him in the calf. “Dude, _stop_, I’m gonna pee!”

Jim’s laughter lapses from wheezing to complete and utter silence, punctuated by shaking and tears sneaking down his face. “I can’t _do this_, Renee!”

Renee lays herself flat out on the floor and breathes in deeply through her mouth, just barely holding off a final fit of hysterics. “Holy shit, my head hurts.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in, like, a full year. At _least_.”

“I don’t think that’s healthy.”

“It definitely isn’t.” With a groan and a gentle shove, Renee is on her feet, wandering down Jim’s hall to his bathroom. 

“You’re really gonna piss, huh?”

“Fuck off, I need aspirin.”

Jim lets his head fall back against the wood. “Don’t feel the need to retuck if it’s a hassle, you know I don’t give a shit.”

“That I do.” She wanders back out with a bottle of painkillers in hand. “Good thing I don’t actually have to pee.”

Jim gives her a foul look. “I’m not getting up.”

“Yes you are.”

Jim holds out his arms petulantly. It’s fun, acting like a kid around her. “Pull me up.”

Renee rolls her eyes, but she does it anyway—_plant the feet, grab the wrists, and hoist like your life depends on it._ “Just for that, you’re making your own batch of cookies.”

“That’s fair. Hand me a pill, will you? My head is killing me.”

When the first batch goes in the oven, Jim turns on his radio, and Renee immediately puts a hand over her face.

“No. Absolutely not.”

Jim leans in, beaming. “Reneeeee,” he singsongs.

“I’m a lesbian,” she declares.

“I’m aware. What’s a bit of stupid dancing between friends?”

Maybe it’s his hopeful smile, or the little shimmy in his shoulders as the trumpet blasts, but Renee takes his hand and lets him lead. It can hardly be called a slow dance, because it’s jazz music and Jim is incapable of slow dancing to jazz, but Renee finds a way to make it feel like one. 

As Jim dips her as the brass swings low, she gets a mischievous look in her eye, and does the same thing to him moments later. 

And they both laugh, long and hard, all over again.

The night ends with a plate of chocolate and peanut butter cookies and reruns of _Law & Order: SVU_, dotted with bad police jokes and fits of giggles. Renee eventually falls asleep against his chest, and Jim smiles and presses a kiss into her hair. 

God, he loves being with her. 

_how can you stay when your heart says no / how can you stop when your feet say go_


	3. "collide (acoustic version)" - howie day

When Jim gets a knock on his door on a rainy September afternoon, he’s taking a break from checking and filing reports and is seated on his kitchen counter, quietly playing his guitar. It’s been way too long since he last played; he feels rusty, and his fingertips ache despite the callouses there. 

“Who goes there?” he shouts, not in the mood to get up.

“Your favorite bastard!”

“Key’s under the doormat, you can let yourself in.”

Thirty seconds later, Bullock comes through the door, his hat dripping from the rim, the shadow on his chin well past five o’clock.

“Hard at work, Chief?”

“Shut up, I’ve been filing and fact-checking for three days straight. I deserve this.”

Bullock laughs, heavy and hearty. He’s a big guy, and most things he does reflect that. “I didn’t even know you played. When the hell did you learn?”

“In high school. I was in a band. We weren’t all that good, and I didn’t even play guitar for them.”

“Tell me you didn’t sing. I would have to send notes of pity to your old band mates.”

“I was a drummer, first of all. Secondly, I can sing just fine.”

“Yeah, if you’re an alleycat with a smoker’s lungs.”

Jim gives him a look of pure exasperation. “You love to insult me. It’s your favorite pastime.”

“You don’t know me.”

Jim shifts his weight to look at him through squinted eyes, his entire body expressing his incredulity. “Motherfucker, I’ve watched you puke your guts up in truck stop bathrooms and in back-alley dumpsters. Don’t you dare tell me I don’t know you.”

Bullock considers this for a moment before nodding somberly. “That’s fair.”

They both laugh then. Jim’s been doing that a lot more often lately. 

“What the hell are you doing here, by the way?” Jim asks as Bullock goes past his kitchen island and makes a beeline for his fridge. “There’s no way you’re on break, and the precinct is fifteen minutes away from here. Too much traffic for a proper return time.”

Bullock pulls an apple and a bottle of water from his top shelf. “I am on break, for two reasons. First is to pick up your reports.”

“Be my guest, there’s gotta be about eighty boxes of them.”

“Second is to check up on you. And maybe steal some of Renee’s cookies.”

Jim tosses his pick at him. “Bastard, don’t you _dare_ touch those cookies. Renee made those for _me_.”

“Exactly! It’s a sin not to take you down a peg!”

Jim slides off of the counter and hoists his guitar over his shoulder, like he’s meaning to smack Bullock with it. “Back off, bitch.”

Bullock doesn’t even flinch. “This reminds me of that one scene from _It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia_. Where Danny DeVito lifts up that whip and yells the exact same thing. Did you steal this idea from him?”

Jim rolls his eyes and lowers the guitar. “No, he stole it from me.”

“Don’t you dare insult our lord and savior Danny DeVito in front of me.”

“I’ll insult whoever I want. Freedom of speech.”

Bullock narrows his eyes at him as he takes a bite of the apple. He chews slowly, his expression never shifting, and when he swallows his mouth settles into a thin line. He looks like he’s plotting Jim’s murder, and Jim isn’t fond of that idea at all.

“Are you done with your dramatics?”

“I dunno, Chief. I’m still deciding.”

“Well, decide faster, because I’m about to decide whether or not you’re getting smacked with a two-by-four a la Lieutenant Montoya.”

Bullock snickers, and Jim rolls his eyes again, a bit more affectionately this time. “You’re such a fucking disaster. How did I even end up with you as a friend?”

“You were nice to me once and I liked it so I decided that I’d never leave you alone. Obviously.”

Jim throws his head back and laughs like there’s no tomorrow, and Bullock is quick to follow him. It’s odd, how much he laughs when he’s not surrounded by file cabinets and fluorescent lights and the surly faces of sleepless fellow cops. Survival comes first when you’re a Gotham cop; humor takes a backseat, unless you have a sick sense of it. 

Bullock chugs his water in one go, which is impressive, and when he pulls back there’s a strange glint in his eye. “I’m also here to ask you a question.”

“Shoot.”

“You ever heard of a guy named Cuchulain?”

Jim stills at the name. A feeling halfway between magma and glacier fragments enters his bloodstream. “Yeah. Heard of him.”

“Yeah. Famous assassin and what have you. We have rumors from a reliable source that’s he’s in town. Not sure what he’s planning, but it’s a good idea to keep an eye open. We think he might be after you.”

“What makes you say that?”

Bullock pulls out his phone, taps with his finger intently for a few seconds, then turns the screen to face Jim. “Look familiar?”

It’s a picture of a plaque on a brick wall: the Wayne Memorial in Crime Alley. Just above and below it are two words, spray-painted in red: _HES NEXT_. Across the plaque itself, spray-painted in the same shade of red, are Jim’s initials: _JWG_

“Shit,” Jim breathes. 

Bullock grunts. “He’s a tricky one. We’re planning on placing a patrol car out front, just in case. Never hurts to have backup—”

“No,” Jim says bluntly. “Put it with the mayor. He needs it more than I do. If Cuchulain wants to come after me, let him. I can take him on my own.”

Bullock’s eyebrows stretch upward to his hairline. “You sure?” 

“I’m sure, Harv. Focus on protecting the people. I can handle myself just fine.”

The water bottle is crunched into a small ball and tossed into Jim’s recycling bin. “Whatever you say, Chief. But you know the rules. If shit goes sideways—”

“Call your landline. Yeah, I know.”

They load the boxes of reports into Bullock’s backseat, then he departs, waving out the window of his patrol car. Jim watches him from his porch until he vanishes around the corner in the rain, and when he comes back inside, he stares out the window for a long time, like he’s waiting for someone to burst through his window in a shower of glass shards and shoot him full of holes. 

Cuchulain.

He shakes his head, lifts his guitar, and goes back to strumming. 

His fingertips still ache. 

_don’t stop here / i’ve lost my place / i’m close behind_


	4. "underdog" - imagine dragons

Maggie throws another bottle cap into the garbage can from across Jim’s living room. “Score three for the Magster.”

Jim lifts the paper that he laid over his face five minutes ago. “I can physically feel my organs shutting down, Mags. This is getting us nowhere. We’re not gonna find him like this.”

Maggie looks at him steadily, with that kind of exhausted fondness that Jim’s become familiar with. “And what do you suggest we do, Jamesathan? Go running through the streets of Gotham, waving a red banner that says _come and catch me_?” 

Jim scrunches up his face. “Mags, come on. I’m not _that_ distasteful. The banner would be eggplant in color.”

Maggie rolls her eyes back into her skull. 

“That’s hot.”

Maggie throws a bottle cap at him and nails him in the side of his arm.

“That’s fair.”

“Jamie, look, I know you’re scared of this guy, but he’s not gonna come to you until he wants to. No amount of needling is gonna change that.”

“I know, I know.” Of course he does, he was saved by the guy once. “Still, I just keep hoping he’ll take his shot and get it over with. I wanna kick his ass.”

Maggie looks up, one eyebrow raised. “Implying that he’s kicked your ass before.”

“He has.”

That gets an expression of unadulterated shock. “What?!”

Jim sighs heavily. “There’s a reason he’s after me. Maybe. Perhaps it’s a coincidence, perhaps not, but I’ve fought him before. Back in Chicago. He killed three people in a week for a check with who even knows how many zeroes. Chances are he’s probably not after me for his own wiles. He saved my life more than once.”

Maggie sits up and eyes him for a long time, a sharklike glint in the shift of her teeth. 

“You _know_ him, Jim.”

“I know him enough.”

Maggie shoots to her feet to the whiteboard on wheels that Jim usually hides away—except for nights like this, “brainstorm nights.” She snaps the lid off an Exxon—dark red, and ain’t that a coincidence—and writes at the top of the board: _Preliminary Profile: Cuchulain_.

“Okay,” she says, turning to him, eyes alight. “List some stuff off. We can start searching for him with an informed perspective.”

“Mags, he’s not gonna be found unless he wants to be, you said it yourself.”

“James.”

Of course she uses _that_ tone of voice. 

“His first name is Declan. That’s your first fact. Second is that he definitely didn’t defile the Wayne memorial. He either paid someone to do it for him, or he’s not working alone. I’m guessing it’s option one. He’s not a very cocky assassin, all things considered.”

Maggie’s hand moves at close to atomic speeds. “Okay, keep going…”

“Skilled with .45s and .22-calibers. Probably good with more. Highly trained assassin. Prefers shots to the back.” He pauses as Maggie scribbles across the slate of white. 

“Keep ‘em comin’, jackass.”

“I am, I’m waiting for you to finish writing.”

Maggie slaps a period at the end of her sentence. “Hand ‘em over.”

“Irish. He’s polite but confident, but not overly so. Good with hand-to-hand combat, though he only does that with targets he supposedly respects. I guess I’m one of those. Named for an Irish folk legend about a giant.” He pauses. “Unreasonably attractive.”

Maggie stops writing and casts a glance Jim’s way. “Jim, this guy is trying to _kill_ you.”

“My point still stands. You weren’t there eighteen years ago. That and you’re a lesbian.”

“I can still tell when a man is attractive or not, you bisexual dumbass.”

“Sure, Mags.”

Maggie caps the pen and glares at him. “Describe him, Jimberly, and I’ll tell you whether he’s attractive or not.”

Jim sniffs and gives her a cocky grin. “If I’m more attractive than him, what do I get?”

“I’ll give Sarah a shove to ask you out. Finally, anyway.”

Jim snaps bolt upright. “Excuse me?!” 

“It all depends on the description, Jimmy James. Tell me what Mr. Assassin looks like, if you’re hotter than him I’ll tell you what I mean.”

“This is cheating.”

Maggie’s face curls into a riptide grin. “Yeah, and?”

Jim sighs and lets himself drop back into the couch. “Fine. Tall, broad-shouldered, redhead, green eyes, high cheekbones, David-sculpted nose—”

“Baby lips?”

“James Dean lips.”

Maggie snickers.

“What?”

“Bitch, if you were looking at his lips, you were thinking about kissing him.” 

“So what if I was? It’s not like I actually did it.”

“You _thought_ about it. Subconsciously, at the very least.” 

“Maggie.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine, you’re hotter than him.”

“This is just a sympathy vote at this point.”

“Do you want to hear about Sarah’s schoolgirl crush on you or not?”

Jim thinks about that for a moment, then shakes his head. “I don’t think I do.”

“In that case, Cuchulain wins out.”

“I’ve lost competitions as such to worse. At West Point I lost a so-called hotness contest to a guy who looked like he had cauliflower growing out of his nose.”

“You looked _that_ bad in college?”

Jim glares at her and throws a pillow her way. “Shut up, man.”

Maggie laughs and tossed it back to him. “I’m just trying to express sympathy. And maybe help you realize that you ain’t hot shit. You gotta keep your ego in check, Jimothy.”

“The encounter with Anna from a few months ago helped me realize that well enough, thank you very much. I’m fully aware I ain’t hot shit. There are people I know who are, however, and one is standing in my living room.”

“Jamesethinian, I am but a simple lesbian.”

“I’m aware. Why all the complicated nicknames?”

“I like making you feel loved.”

Jim rises unsteadily from the couch and wraps her up in a hug. “You always make me feel loved, even when you don’t.”

Maggie hugs him back just as hard, and Jim tries his hardest not to stare too long at the whiteboard. He can’t think about shattered windows and bullets in spines and dead bodies cooling on the floor. 

He can only think about right here, right now.

So he buries his head in Maggie’s shoulder and tries to pretend that his life isn’t on the line.

“It’ll be alright, Jim-Bob,” Maggie whispers. 

And Jim tries his best to believe her.

_hey, that sounds like my luck / i get the short end of it / i’d love to be the underdog_


	5. "lung" - vancouver sleep clinic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jim and selina are friends okay. don't @ me.

Jim wakes up to soft clattering noises coming from his window, and he’s completely awake in an instant, his gun in hand and pointed right between the eyes of—

“Selina,” he breathes, dropping his gun hand to the sheets. “Hi.”

Selina is staring at him, wide-eyed behind her goggles, half-in half-out of Jim’s window. She looks scared out of her mind in a way that Jim has never seen her look scared before, and that’s more than a bit frightening. 

“Hi,” she whispers back. “We need to talk.”

“It’s two in the morning, Selina.” 

“I _know_. Bruce thinks I’m on patrol. He can’t know that I’m here. It’s a secret.”

Jim turns on the light as Selina slips through and pulls the curtains closed. “What’s so important that you can’t tell him? I know I can’t exactly arrest you because I’m off the clock, but if you killed a man or robbed a bank I’m not exactly the best person to tell—”

“Shut up,” she hisses suddenly, and her eyes are full of fury and terror and a love so deep it could drown the world. “Just shut up, Jim. I came here because you’re the only person I trust with this, but if you’re gonna act like a jackass then I’m gonna leave.”

Jim feels his stomach drop with guilt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how important it was.”

Selina pulls her cowl and goggles off, then sits on the edge of Jim’s bed and takes off her shoes and gloves. Her movements are concentrated, cold and calculating, but they’re also hasty, and she ends up struggling with the clasps and buckles a bit more than she seemed to have anticipated. 

She doesn’t look at him.

When she’s done, she stares at the floor in front of her, and Jim watches her intently. 

“Selina.” 

She still doesn’t look up.

“Selina, I’m sorry I got mad at you like that, I’m just stressed as hell because I have an assassin after me and I’m sleep-deprived enough as it is—”

“I’m pregnant.”

Jim’s heart skids to a stop, and he sits bolt upright. “What.”

Selina inhales slowly, shakily, and she finally looks up. Her eyes are full of tears and a terror so palpable Jim feels like he’s intruding on it. “I’m pregnant, Jim. I’m pregnant and I’m scared shitless.”

Jim’s brain does a lot of computing in a short amount of time, and the first thing that makes about ninety percent of sense is the first thing out of his mouth. 

“What the fuck are you doing _patrolling_, then?!”

“I can’t let Bruce know!”

“Why the hell not?! What’s he gonna do?!”

“Stop being Batman!”

Jim stops at that. “What?”

“Think about it,” she hisses, turning to face him. Her eyes are wide with the taste of her grief. “If I tell him I’m pregnant, he’s going to give up Batman. Gotham is gonna be without someone to protect it, and we can’t take that risk. Gotham _needs_ Batman, James, and you know it.”

Jim takes a full ten seconds to process this, because he’s tired as fuck and Selina isn’t making any sense at all right now. 

“Sel,” he says finally, putting a hand over his eyes. “Sel, even if Bruce does stop being Batman, which is unlikely enough already, there are people to take up the mantle for him. Dick and Cass and Jason—”

“But it’ll change something,” Selina counters, and her voice is high with fear. “Jim, I can’t let that happen, Gotham will either fall apart or it’ll grow and either way that’s terrifying—”

“Selina.”

Selina is crying now, buried in hysterics. “I can’t risk it, Jim, Gotham can’t lose him, it can’t—”

Jim reaches out, pulls her into his chest, and lets her cry it out. He knows it’s about a lot more than whatever is happening right now, it’s Selina’s abandonment issues and Bruce’s poor coping mechanisms and four million other things that could make this terrible. 

But there are many many more things that can make this wonderful. 

Selina pours her heart out to him in a storm of sobs and gasps and really bad rationalizations, and Jim listens with one ear; the other is only paying mind to the creaks and groans and clatters of his home, God forbid Cuchulain gets any bright ideas. 

(Jim doesn’t really care if he gets killed in his own home by an assassin. He cares more that someone will bear witness to his death—or worse, will join him in it.)

When the breakdown is over, Selina is spread out across his chest, still sniffling, but not nearly as much. She’s also trembling—this is something Jim’s used to, and he pulls her in closer. 

“I have an idea,” he whispers. “Of how to tell him, I mean.”

Selina gulps. “Oh?”

“Tell him to come here. This is neutral ground. It’s not like the streets or the Manor or your apartment. Tell him to come here, and you tell him the news.”

She considers this for a long time before lifting her head to meet his gaze. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t know much, but I know your husband. That’s the best plan I can offer you.”

Silence dominates for a moment before Selina inhales, slowly and shakily. “Can we do this tonight?”

Jim isn’t about to say no to a request like that. She’s terrified, and frankly, he’s a bit scared for her sake, too. Not because Bruce would get angry, but because there’s an off-chance that she’s right. 

_Then what, Jim?_

“Yeah.” He pulls her in for one last squeeze, presses a kiss to her hair. “Go get changed. I’ll make some tea.”

Forty-one minutes later, Jim is sitting at his table with Selina across from him. They’re both in sweats, ones that are grossly oversized in Selina’s case (she’s tiny, standing at a solid five foot three and no higher). Selina’s leg is bouncing under the table, her fingers rattling repetitively across the old wood. 

Something—or rather, someone—lands on Jim’s back porch. 

Jim knows better than to go for his gun; he’d recognize those footsteps anywhere.

The back door lock is picked and sprung, and Bruce’s silent, steady pacing approaches until he’s standing on the doorway of Jim’s kitchen, his massive black bulk taking up almost the entire space, the matte of the cape and cowl absorbing any hint of substance except what light lands on his exposed skin.

Jim is reminded of the fear that Batman is able to instill. There are times when he forgets that fear, because the silhouette before him is a reminder of warmth and brotherhood far more than it is terror. 

“Hello.”

Bruce reaches up and pulls the cowl away from his face—Jim still has no idea how the suit does that, and he doubts he ever will. 

“Good morning, Jim.” He turns to Selina, who hasn’t spared him a glance yet. “Cat? Is everything alright?”

Jim looks at her; he’s never seen her so scared before.

Selina takes a deep breath and makes eye contact with her husband. “We need to talk, Bat. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, but I’ve been scared to say it.”

The cape drops away from Bruce’s shoulders—Jim hadn’t even seen him unfasten it—and he walks the distance between the doorway and Selina before getting on his knees in front of her. A show of trust, and of devotion; Bruce’s knees are complete and utter shit. 

“Cat, you can tell me anything, you know that,” he whispers, gently grazing the side of her face with his knuckles. 

Quietly, Jim slips out of his seat and walks out of the room. This is something he’s not mean to bear witness to. 

He stands on the back porch for a long time, staring out into the night, like he’s waiting for something—maybe he is—before realizing how harsh the bite of October wind is against his skin. He silently turns to go back inside.

When he reaches his kitchen, Selina and Bruce are wrapped around each other on the floor, leaned against the side of the counter—Selina is in his lap, Bruce’s arms wrapped around her like a vice. They’re both smiling, and Bruce’s cheeks are red and glistening with tear tracks in the dim lights overhead. He’s whispering something to her in a language Jim doesn’t know, and Selina is laughing softly every now and then. 

Jim smiles, turns around, and heads back upstairs to catch a precious few more hours of sleep. 

_I can’t breathe… / can somebody help me out?_


	6. "house of wolves" - my chemical romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> full stop, i went off the shits insane writing this chapter. i reread Gordon Of Gotham right before i did and then jammed to mcr for like three hours at work while i wrote this. if you want the full experience start listening to house of wolves when jim says "cheers." you won't regret it i promise.

Jim is on his couch, reading _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ per Tim’s request (read: insistence), when he hears the sound of his mudroom door being unlocked.

He doesn’t move to run or hide. Instead, he picks his gun up off the table, turns the safety off, and feels for the sleeves he’s installed on the table legs. One small dagger—throwing knives—on each side, a spare clip attached just below the knife on one side. A spare set of handcuffs tucked into the cushions of the couch. A metal baseball bat in the crevice between the couch and the side table. 

He’s not completely ready, but it’s good enough. 

He settles back in and waits. 

Cuchulain enters the room with footsteps that are soft, but too far apart to be Batman’s and too close together to be Nightwing. He has aged, like Jim has, but perhaps a bit better; his hair is longer and pulled back into a sophisticated braid, his eyes less wrinkled around the edges and still green as the rolling hills of his homeland. He’s in dark clothes, and there’s a gun hanging loosely, comfortably from his right hand. A nine-millimeter Glock, the kind you can buy at any gun store in the country.

“Hullo, laddy-buck.”

Jim puts his book down. “Long time no see.”

“That is has.”

“So, you’re here to kill me?”

“Not of me own volition. I was hired. It’s not like I go ‘round killin’ people for the sake of fun.”

“You’re still here to kill me.”

Cuchulain shrugs. “Wish it weren’t me, lad. I like ye, yaknow. S’why I saved yer hide all those years ago.”

“You killed three people in a week for the sake of _saving my hide_. You don’t just do that because you like someone.”

“You’ve never been an assassin, have ye? When you’re always wanderin’ ya don’t exactly have the time to make friends. But I liked ya back then. Honest, smart, good-natured. And maybe a bit easier on the eyes than your average Joe. Seems all that carried over.”

Jim shrugs. “I appreciate your affections. Am I allowed to ask who hired you?”

“Might as well tell ye, since ye won’t make it out anyway. A bloke called Mr. Gillian Loeb. Said he gotta mad grudge against ye.”

“Bastard resigned because of me, if I remember correctly. I outed his racketeering to the whole city.”

“That’s what I mean, when I say I like ye. You’ve got a conscience. You’re good at heart, better’an I am at any rate.”

“With all due respect, I’m gonna have to agree with you on that point.”

Cuchulain smiles. It’s slow and genuine, despite the gun in his hand. “So,” he lifts it and aims at Jim’s chest. “Sorry in advance, laddy. Believe me, I don’t want ta do this, but I need the money. For safety’s sake, see.”

“I’m sure you do.”

Cuchulain’s finger tenses on the trigger, and Jim counts down—

The coffee table goes vertical just as the trigger is pulled, and Jim thanks God that Bruce plated the underside with titanium for him as the bullet snaps through the wood and into the metal just beside his chest.

“Aw, lad, don’t be like that. It’s just business.”

“My daughter’s getting married in a few months and my brother’s wife is pregnant.” Jim loads his gun and grabs a dagger out of a sleeve. “I have a bit too much to live for to go quietly.”

“That’s fair. Here’s to a good fight.”

“Cheers.”

He’s coming around the side. The second his leg is in view, the dagger makes headway and buries itself in his calf, and Cuchulain howls in agony as Jim rolls past the upended coffee table and dashes out of the room, narrowly avoiding two slugs as they shoot past him and land in the opposite wall. 

Fuck. He left all his weapons behind except the gun in his hand and the spare clip in his back pocket.

Cuchulain doesn’t seem to notice them; his footsteps are making a beeline after Jim. Hopefully he’ll have time to circle back and try again. For now, he’ll make do with whatever he can.

“So, your daughter’s getting married, eh? Didn’t know you had one.”

Jim ducks beneath the kitchen table and upends that, too. It’s not metal-plated, but it’ll offer something rather than nothing. “Had her after I moved. Hey, listen, if I win this fight, I get to Miranda you till my throat goes dry.”

Two slugs snap into the wood. Shit. He’s gonna have to get a new table.

“Read me mah rights all ye want. Not gonna gotcha very far.”

He’s close. Jim yanks a leg of the table out of its socket and winds up. 

“I can make an effort. You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent—”

There’s the leg, there’s the crotch, here’s the swing—

Cuchulain squawks and almost, _almost_ folds. Damn shame, it’s the best crotch shot Jim’s ever given. 

“I know that’s fighting dirty, but I figured it’s all fair game.”

Cuchulain snarls and lunges forward, and Jim swings again—the Glock goes sailing across the room and smashes into the wall hard enough to leave a dent. 

So he pulls out a Bowie knife.

Excellent. 

“That’s not fair,” Jim says as he blocks swing after swing with the table leg. 

“All’s fair in love and assassinations.”

“Touché. You have the right to remain—”

He lets his guard down, and Cuchulain lands a hard swing into his left cheek. It’s not hard enough to really injure anything, but it _is_ hard enough to sting like a bitch. 

Jim doesn’t falter; if he does now, Cuchulain can and will bury that knife into his chest. Maybe his eye, if he’s feeling lucky. 

“You’re faster than I remember ya being, laddy.”

Jim spits; his saliva is tainted red. “I’ve fought bigger and badder than you.” He remembers what it’s like to get smacked in the chest with a massive wooden carnival hammer. Not a good time, especially if it’s more than once. 

“Maybe, but I’ll bet they weren’t as efficient.”

“Probably not.” Jim swings from below, neatly uppercutting him with the leg of his table. Something in the assassin’s face cracks, and he stumbles backward—

—toward his gun.

Jim dashes forward, shoves Cuchulain down to the floor, pins his hands over his head, ignoring the inherent homoeroticism of the action. “You have the right—to remain—_silent_—”

One hand breaks free, mercifully knife-less, and lands a fist into his throat. 

Jim chokes, gags, and rolls away, knowing full damn well he can’t beat a hit to the throat in under thirty seconds. Not at his age. Cuchulain is a bit worse for wear, with a broken jaw and a knife to his calf, so his recovery time is delayed just enough to work in Jim’s favor.

He snags the discarded table leg and crawls into the next room: the kitchen. He’s got an advantage in here; he knows where everything is.

Jim rolls behind the island counter and begins his countdown. First move, prep gun. All slugs ready, no jamming, safety off. Second move, check the table leg. Splintered and battered, but not altogether useless. Still usable, at any rate. 

Third move, grab some knives from the floor-level drawer, kept for this purpose specifically. 

Jim attacks first this time; he fires off a slug toward the dining room, and Cuchulain yelps.

“Listen, you bastard, I get that ye don’t wanta die, but this isn’t quite necessary.”

“You just punched me in the neck. _You have the right to remain silent, anything you say_—”

A slug takes out Jim’s main kitchen light. The atmosphere dims, and Jim prays to God he can do this with dulled eyesight and low visibility.

He digs around and grabs his best steak knife—a Japanese blade, a Christmas gift from Jason—and steels himself.

(He would later regret not voicing that pun in particular. He would bring it up in front of a one Dick Grayson in his hospital room not to long after and would be answered with a look of simultaneous awe and discouragement. A one Bruce Wayne, from across the room, would groan aloud and put his head in his hands as Jim laughs.)

Cuchulain comes around the corner and into the room with the wrath of the Devil in his eyes, and Jim laughs in his face, which just makes it worse. 

“Laddy-buck, you’re makin’ this far more difficult than it has to be.” 

“I want to live, bitch. I want to live more than I have in years, and I’m not letting you take this life away from me.”

Cuchulain slides across the island and fires one shot. 

The bullet hits Jim’s thigh.

He doesn’t back down. 

He gets a punch to the face, and when he comes back to center he looks at his attacker; his face is swollen and broken and bloodstained. He’s losing. Jim has the hole in his thigh, but he’s not bleeding from between his teeth or trying to talk without popping his jaw from his socket.

“Fuck you,” he snarls.

“Wish you would,” Cuchulain bites back. 

Alright, then. That’s how tonight’s going.

“I’d rather not, thanks.” He dodges, lands two hits into Cuchulain’s ribs, shoves him back against the stove, and goes at him like a boxer in the corner. 

Cuchulain finally gets one in: the Bowie lands somewhere in Jim’s hip.

He finally falters. 

He falls back against the island, panting, wheezing, and Cuchulain approaches like a leopard stalking his prey, like Jim is an antelope caught in a bear trap, helpless and abandoned. 

“How’s it feel, laddy-buck,” Cuchulain snarls, “to get this far and die anyway?”

The leopard, of course, doesn’t know there’s another bear trap right next to the first one as insurance; Jim’s hand tightens on the tenderizer he just barely managed to snag before almost falling over from the impact of his collision. 

“I wouldn’t know,” he pants back, “because I’m sure as hell not dying tonight.”

Cuchulain lunges—

_here’s the pitch_

—and Jim swings with all the strength he has left in him, slamming the spiked end of the metal hammer into the side of his face. There’s several loud cracks that all happen within a second of each other, and he falls to the floor, writhing and grasping around for something, anything to defend himself with.

Jim kicks the gun and abandoned table leg away and finally pulls his handcuffs out of his shirt pocket. “You have the _right_ to remain _silent_, you determined son of a bitch.” He straddles the prone figure below him and cuffs his wrists behind his back. “Anything you say can and most definitely will be used against you in a court of law. If you cannot afford legal counsel, you will be supplied with it by the state of New Jersey. Am I understood?”

Cuchulain laughs, crazed and wild and hysterical. “Lookie that, the wee laddy-buck beat me.”

Jim wheezes sharply at the sudden pain hitting him—his hip, his thigh, his face, his head, _God_, his head is killing him—

“Motherfucker,” he says out loud over his assailant’s laughter. “You probably just made my concussions worse.”

Weakly, he forces himself to his feet and out of the room. He dials a phone number that doesn’t exist on his landline, leaves a short message without letting Bruce get a word in edgewise—“I got Cuchulain, he’s at my place, bring the calvary and an ambulance.”—before hanging up and slumping against the kitchen wall, gun in hand, eyeing his prisoner, who’s still laughing. 

“Most psychologists would call this a psychotic break,” Jim says. 

The laughter doesn’t stop until Jim’s front door slams open and his house floods with police and tall figures in spandex and kevlar, until a familiar hand is running through his hair and a gentle voice is pulling him out of the void he’s so close to falling into. 

“Jim, look at me, _look_ at me.”

He does, right up into the white lenses of Bruce’s mask, into the graphite-and-paint expression of fear and compassion written into Bruce’s face. 

“Hey, little brother,” he wheezes, and he feels blood leak from between his teeth when he smiles. “How you doing?”

“I’m okay. Stay awake for me, okay? You’re gonna be alright.”

“I know,” Jim manages as the world starts to fade in and out of focus, “because...because you're here now…”

The world falls away into a silent landscape of darkness.

_you better walk like the devil cuz they’re never gonna leave you alone / s-i-n, s-i-n_


	7. "so easy" - phillip phillips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm emo about preboot jim and sarah. @ dc let jim be happy and in love please.

“You’re lucky you got out of there the way you did,” Sarah says, slapping another mound of spackle onto the wall over a bullethole. “One added, minor concussion, a stab wound, and one bullet that didn’t hit anything.”

“Believe me, I know how lucky I am,” Jim says as he smooths out his own mound. “I’m pretty sure Batman’s instilled an influence on me.”

“Bruce has a habit of doing that.”

Jim flashes a smile her way. It’s crooked and punctuated by his shiners—four days in a hospital can’t fix black eyes that easily—but she smiles back just as broadly. “Seriously, thank you for helping me with this.”

It’s been a week since Cuchulain’s attack. Jim has been out of the hospital for two days, and the majority of that time has been spent repairing his home. The kitchen table hadn't even been close to salvageable, so he’d recruited the Batkids to help him find a new one at a thrift store while he fixed and repainted his walls. Sarah had shown up about two hours ago to help him out, already in a paint-stained long sleeve T-shirt and overalls, a backpack full of homemade brownies in hand.

So, here they are now.

Sarah snorts and rolls her eyes. “Please, dumbfuck. Like I’m letting you do all this on your own. This is my charity case of the week.”

“Who was yours last week?”

“Lieutenant Navarro from the thirty-six. Helped her fix her A/C.”

“What are you, Sergeant Home Repair?”

Sarah giggles. “Funny you say that. My dad used to call me that when I was a kid.”

“No shot in hell.”

Sarah throws her head back and laughs, and Jim’s heart does a backflip. 

“My brothers were always doing sports and theater stuff, so I helped my dad around the shop. He taught me how to hotwire a car, fix an engine, change oil, you name it. All this is very convenient when fixing air conditioning and other household goings-on.”

“I would guess.” Jim scrapes away the extra spackle from the last hole. “That’s the last of it. Hey, did your dad ever teach you how to unclog a toilet?”

“If you’re gonna ask me to do that for you, I swear to God—”

“I wasn’t, I swear. Just genuine curiosity.”

“He didn’t. I learned it myself.”

“I am so sorry.”

Sarah cackles at that. “I love how you just immediately understood what I was getting at.”

“I’m a detective, and I read way too much anyway.”

Sarah slaps the spacklers down into a bucket and pops the lid back over the jar. “I’m starving, after work like that.”

“You and me both. Want some soup? Steph and Tim dropped some gumbo off this morning, but I have some leftover homemade stuff too.”

“Mr. Gordon, you had me at gumbo.”

Jim laughs as they enter the kitchen, whereupon he pulls out an entire pot from the fridge and places it on the stove. “Give it a bit, it’s gotta warm up.”

“I can always wait for good gumbo. My aunt used to come up from New Orleans all the time with her famous gumbo.” She sighs nostalgically. “Throw in some biscuits and cornbread and there’s a damn fine meal.” 

“There’s Bisquick in the cabinet,” he tells her, smirking. 

Sarah pops out of her seat and slides around the island. “Jimboberly Gordon, I’d kill a man for you.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that. I only accept human sacrifice on Wednesdays and Saturdays.”

“It’s Friday, I think that’s close enough.”

Jim laughs and shakes his head as Sarah rolls up her sleeves. She’s got that look in her eyes, the one Jim saw the first time he ever met her—hard determination laced with gentle curiosity. 

“I hope you can bake as well as you can spackle walls, Miss Essen.”

“I’m multifaceted.”

“Like a chameleon?” 

“Like a praying mantis. You ever watch those nature documentaries about those things? They’re fucking scary. If they were bigger and able to eat humans, we’d have been dead ages ago.”

“Good riddance.”

Sarah laughs again, harder this time, and when she claps a puff of flour explodes in the air, coating her face and shoulders with it. “That was a mistake.”

Jim has to lean over, he’s laughing so hard, so Sarah claps some flour into his hair as vengeance. It results in a very short flour fight then ends with Sarah smacking a few fingerfulls directly over his glasses, causing him to take them off and raise his hands in a surrender. 

“You win, you win, I give already.”

Sarah wails with laughter and smacks the countertop. 

“What?”

She tries once, twice, then slaps a hand over her eyes and manages, “Rectangle eyes,” before exploding into another fit of hysterics. Jim throws his hand over his head dramatically, which just makes her laugh harder.

The biscuits do get made eventually, and they sit on the floor against the island, bowls in their laps and a plate of biscuits between them, talking about everything and nothing.

Sarah is halfway through a detailed analysis on why the concept of Christianity is integral to modern law and the dangers of it thereby—yes, these are things that Jim and his friends actually talk about, because it’s important to their way of life to rationalize and compartmentalize everything—when Jim has an epiphany that makes his chest seize up. 

There’s another reason why he fought like hell to beat Cuchulain, and she’s right here on his kitchen floor with him. 

“What’s the look for?”

Jim blinks. Sarah is staring intently up at him, her dark eyes as piercing and magnetic as a black hole. 

“Huh?”

“You’re looking at me funny. Like, I dunno, like a teenager or something.”

Right on the money.

“Can I say something kind of controversial?”

She smirks at him. “You know I love controversy. I thrive on it.”

Jim swallows hard, because it doesn’t matter that he’s been feeling this way for six years now, because he’s about to actually say it and that’s scarier than facing off with a highly trained assassin, because—

“I’m in love with you.”

Sarah blinks, and very slowly her eyebrows upturn. “Escuzi?”

And he has to say it again. Emotional constipation is gonna be the death of him. 

“I’m in love with you, Sarah Essen. Have been for a long time.”

Sarah’s expression softens—_holy fuck, he is gone for her_—and a hand takes his without fanfare. 

“Took you long enough,” she says finally, but she’s smiling. “Can I ask how long?”

Ah, shit. 

“Since that night in the Narrows. When we were after Firefly, when you punched him in the face and called him a bitch-born bastard. I kind of suspected it before then, but that whole thing solidified it.”

Sarah looks like she’s biting back a grin. “That’s probably the most romantic thing a man’s ever said to me.”

Jim laughs nervously. “Glad to hear it?”

“Hey, Jimmers. Loosen up, yeah?”

Jim starts to ask her what she means, then a hand is on his jaw and there’s breath on his lips, it’s Sarah, she’s so close—

_here’s the pitch_

—and Sarah is kissing him, softly, slowly, and Jim follows her advice. He loosens up, and he kisses her back, trying to follow her lead, and it’s like Heaven, like walking on air, like the euphoria you can only get when a dream you’ve chased for so long _finally_ makes itself known and worthwhile.

Sarah’s been a loved dream of his for a long time.

Sarah pulls away, presses her forehead to his, and Jim is struck dumb with the fact that this is real.

“I’m in love with you, too,” she says, and hot fuck, it’s like his first kiss all over again. 

“We’re gonna have to talk about this, aren’t we?”

Sarah nods against him, her black-hole eyes still trained in on his. 

“We will. Later, though.”

“Right,” he breathes. “Later.”

And they do, later. For now, though, they sit on the floor in Jim’s kitchen, surrounded by the golden light of the early October evening, hands entwined.

Sarah’s head is on his shoulder.

Jim’s heart is in her hands.

_you’re the reason i believe in something i don’t know_


	8. bonus round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jim shouldn't have trusted the batkids with home interior design during spoopy month.

Jim peers at his surrogate kids from the spaces between his fingers. “Why.”

Tim bounces on the balls of his feet. “It’s October, Jim.”

“Time for the Skeleton War,” Stephanie contributes. 

“I don’t need spoils from the Skeleton War in my dining room all days of the year. Where the fuck did you go, Hot Topic Decor? Goth Depot?”

“No, but I _really_ wish that was a thing now.”

The table they’ve found is huge—five feet across and eight feet wide, taking up far more of the room than necessary. It’s also made of wood as dark as the night sky and carved like it just came from the meeting hall of a medieval sect of evil knights.

“I’m not using this. Take it back.”

“It’s a no-refund policy,” Jason says from the doorway.

“Oh my _God_,” Sarah says, a hand over her face, trying not to giggle. 

“Why would you _not_ use it? It’s perfect for your crowd.” Stephanie pats the tabletop. “This bad boy can hold food for _so_ many vigilantes.”

Tim starts snort-laughing as Jason gazes off into middle distance. 

“I’m never letting you do my shopping for me again. I’m selling this bastard for five hundred on eBay.”

“Have fun,” Sarah quips.

(Jim won’t sell it—he’ll spray paint his chairs black and will try to make the table look less like a poorly spawned choice in his living quarters. At least Bruce will get a kick out of it when he comes over.)

Jim shakes his head slowly. “I wish Cuchulain had killed me.”

He gets yelled at a bit for that one, but he buys the kids some 7-Eleven gummy worms, so he gets out of that one pretty much scot-free.

After Sarah leaves that night, he gets a text message from her: a gif of a tiny ghost turning its body into a heart with the caption _you make me shiver!_

Jim grins and starts a search for a return gif, only to get a text from Bruce halfway through:

_**Brucie Bear:** Fucking finally._

_**Jim Gordon:** Get out of my system._

_**Brucie Bear:** Make me._

Jim blocks his number for the night, and sends Sarah a gif of two kittens hugging.

She sends back a heart emoji.

“Oh God,” Jim says out loud. “I’m not cut out for this.”

His smile, however, gives him away.


End file.
